Download The Atmosphere: Structure and Temperature

Seasons and Atmosphere
Observations
 Globe
 Lamp
 Ann’s Book. Astronomy Activity 10 (pg 83)
 Reason for the seasons
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What do you already know about the Earth?
How do you think Earth formed?
What is Earth’s position in the solar system?
How does planet Earth compare to the other planets in the
solar system?
How close is Earth to other planets?
How do Earth and other planets move through the galaxy?
Probe to get them towards Revolution.
In one day are you always the same distance from the sun?
How do we have day and night?
Probe to get them towards Rotation.
Revolution
Motion of a body along a path
around some point in space.
 Earth’s orbit is elliptical
 Earth’s distance from the sun
varies
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Perihelion
 Earth is closest to the sun
 147 million km away
 Occurs on January 3rd
 Aphelion
 Earth is farthest from the sun
 152 million km away
 Occurs on July 4th
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Rotation
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The turning or spinning of
a body on its axis
Causes day and night
Two kinds of
measurement
 Mean Solar Day – time
interval from one noon to
the next (24 hours)
 Sidereal Day – time it
takes for Earth to make
one complete rotation
(360’) with respect to a
star other than the sun (23
hours, 56 minutes, 4
seconds)
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Put out a globe for students to look at.
What do you notice about the shape or the orientation of
Earth?
Probe them to get to tilt
Have you ever wondered why the Earth is tilted instead of
just perpendicular with its plane of orbit?
What is gravity?
How is matter measured?
Now relate rotation and revolution back to earth’s tilted axis
and how the axis causes seasons.
Activity- Simulation – gather observations (discuss)
Get them to seasons from the tilt.
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Seasons are caused
by the tilting of the
earth on its axis
(23.5°)
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When the Earth is
tilted towards the Sun
– warmer seasons
When the Earth is
tilted away from the
Sun – cooler
seasons
Meteorology Activity 6 (Pg. 59)
 Heating of thermometers tilted at different
angles.
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What type of weather do you experience during the four seasons?
What is the study of weather?
What is another term that you associate with weather?
Where does weather occur?
What is our air made of?
*lead them to water vapor is made in the atmosphere also = clouds/air
masses
Is the air the same at different temperatures?
FOLDABLE Layers of the atmosphere
Whats the difference between the air around you on the ground and the
air outside of an airplane.
Mountain Range picture: Why is their snow on top of the mountains but
not at the base?
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The study of
weather, climate,
and atmospheric
processes
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Weather is constantly changing
and it refers to the state of the
atmosphere at any given time
and place
Climate is based on
observations of weather that
have been collected over many
years to help describe a place or
region
 Main
Components
Nitrogen – 78%
 Oxygen – 21%
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CO2 < 1%
 Argon < 1%
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Air pollution is airborne
particles and gases that
occur in concentrations
large enough to endanger
the health of organisms
Primary Pollution:
emitted directly from
identifiable sources
Secondary Pollutions: not
emitted directly into air
(agriculture)
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Water vapor - source of
all clouds and
precipitation.
The three states of matter solid, liquid, and gas
(plasma is the fourth)
Precipitation
 Condensation
 Evaporation
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Precipitation is any
form of water that
falls from a cloud.
© When it comes to
understanding
atmospheric processes,
water vapor is the most
important gas in the
atmosphere
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amount of
water vapor in
air.
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Ratio of the air’s
actual water-vapor
content compared with
the amount of water
vapor air can hold at
that temperature and
pressure.
Lowering air
temperature causes an
increase in relative
humidity
Raising air
temperature causes a
decrease in relative
humidity
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Instrument: Hygrometer
Psychrometer : a type of
hygrometer consisting of
two identical
thermometers mounted
side by side
Dry bulb: give the present
air temperature
Wet bulb: has thin wet
wick tied around the end
Dew point is the
temperature to
which a parcel of
air would need to
be cooled to
reach saturation.
Clouds are
classified on
the basis of
their form
and height.
Cirrus (cirrus = curl of hair)
high, white, and thin
Cumulus (cumulus = a pile)
rounded individual cloud
masses that have a flat base
and the appearance of rising
domes or towers
Stratus (stratus = a layer)
best described as sheets or
layers that cover much or all
of the sky
Clouds form
when air is
cooled to its
dew point
For precipitation
to form, cloud
droplets must
grow in volume
by roughly one
million times.
The type of precipitation
that reaches Earth’s
surface depends on the
temperature profile in the
lower few km of the
atmosphere
© Rain: drops of water that
fall from a cloud and have a
diameter of at least 0.5 mm
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© Snow:
light, fluffy, sixsided ice crystals
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Sleet: fall of small particles of
clear to translucent ice
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Glaze: when raindrops become
supercooled as they fall through
subfreezing air and turns to ice
when they impact objects
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Hail: form of solid precipitation
which consists of balls of
irregular lumps of ice produced
in cumulonimbus clouds
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A cloud with
its base at or
very near the
ground.
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The atmosphere rapidly
thins as you travel away from
Earth until there are too few
gas molecules to detect.
Pressure Changes
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Temperature Changes
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As you increase in altitude, or
travel away from Earth, pressure
decreases
As you increase in altitude in the
Troposphere the temperature
decreases.
Density Changes
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The Troposphere - the
bottom layer
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Temperature decreases with an
increase in altitude.
Where weather occurs
Tropopause: boundary of the
troposphere
The Stratosphere
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Above the troposphere
Temperature remains constant,
then gradually starts to increase
Contains the ozone layer
Stratopause: boundary of the
stratosphere
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The Mesosphere
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Above the stratosphere
Temperature decreases with
height
Mesopause: boundary of the
mesosphere
The Thermosphere:
Upper layer of the
atmosphere
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Temperature increase with
height
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Auroras occur here
Fades into space
How does the temperature move about in the
layers of the atmosphere?
 Move them towards convection, conduction,
and radiation.
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Heat: the energy
transferred from
one object to
another because of
a direct difference in
their temperature
 Temperature:
measure of the
amount of heat
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 Heat
transfer from
HOT to COLD objects
 Conduction
The transfer of heat
through matter by
molecular activity
 Transfer by touching
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 Convection
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The transfer of heat
by a mass movement
or circulation within a
substance
 Radiation
Travels out in all
directions
 Solar energy reaches
earth by radiation
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Reflection
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occurs when light
bounces off an object.
30 % of all radiation is
reflected back to
space
Scattering produces
a larger number of
rays that travel in
many directions.
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Absorption:
50 % of the solar
energy that strikes
the top of the
atmosphere
reaches the
Earth’s surface
 20% is absorbed in
the clouds
 30% is reflected
back to space
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Ozone is a form of
oxygen that
combines three
oxygen atoms into
each molecule (O3)
• Ozone filters and
absorbs harmful
UV radiation by
the sun
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Heating of Land and Water Activity
 Lead them back into temperatures varying on
LAND!
 Discuss from activity
 Observations
 Follow- up question: What other factors affect
the temperature of an area on land?
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Factors:
Heating of land
 Heating of water
 Altitude
 Geographic
position
 Cloud cover
 Ocean currents
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Land heats and cools more rapidly
and to higher temperatures than
water
 Water – heats up longer and will
retain the heat longer
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Albedo
the fraction of total
radiation that is
reflected by any
surface.
Daylight Cloud Cover
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Clouds reflect solar
radiation back to space
Temperatures are lower
than on a clear day
Nighttime Cloud
Cover
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Clouds absorb radiation
from land and reradiates
some of it back to Earth
Temperatures are higher
than on a clear night
Isotherms - lines
on a weather
map that connect
points that have
the same
temperatures